darkest before dawn
by keem
Summary: Renji's left to pick up the pieces. Oneshot. RenjixRukia, onesided RukiaxKaien.


**A/N:** alternate tagline: "sure you're not zabimaru, but i'll be makin' you howl." but then again, that would be just _silly_. lyrics provided by peter bradley adams.

--

_there's a ghost above my door_

_still, can you hear_

_there's a high lonesome call_

_but i'll forget you_

_as the space around me grows_

_i need the touch of your skin_

_so bye-bye_

--

It is late out, and although shinigami don't necessarily _need_ sleep in order to function, most of them have retired to their respective flats by this time in the evening. Renji knows he should be amongst the dozens of others turning in for the night, too - knows that he should be in bed, poring over ancient texts, memorizing spells; or at the very least utilizing one of the many dojos made available for seated members, would-be lieutenants. He's more brawn than brains, but squeezing in a few hours of swordplay before dawn has never proved to be a _bad _thing. Renji doesn't usually waste any time idling, but this is important, dammit, and that's why he finds himself galavanting outside the limits of the Soul Society, on the prowl for a familiar figure with dark hair and a rueful smile.

Rukia Kuchiki hasn't been seen in a good several hours, and while this in itself isn't unusual, what has prompted it _is_. Renji hadn't thought much of the matter until Ikkaku mentioned that there had been an "incident" with a particularly nasty Hollow today, which resulted in a lieutenant getting himself killed. When Renji learned the name of his fallen superior, he immediately understood.

So that's why he's out here stumbling around in the darkness, muttering curses under his breath as he gets himself hopelessly ensnared within the extravagant undergrowth. He and Rukia have grown distant in the years since her admittance into the Kuchiki family, but that doesn't mean that Renji loves her any less. If anything, it's a particularly sore spot that has only gotten sorer; the invisible wall erected between them has only managed to push the matter into the forefront of his mind, until he's left obsessing over it during every feasible, waking moment of the day. It's only Rukia that could make Renji abandon his already hectic workload, to go trudging blindly through the darkness in order to offer solace she probably doesn't want.

He's even got it all mapped out in his head, everything he wants to say. Renji swears as the edge of his hakama catches on the jagged edge of a low branch and tears. Renji throws the offending protrusion a surly look as his white kosode tears free, and he considers hacking away at it with Zabimaru before he remembers the importance of the matter at hand, and abandons the endeavor outright.

Just ahead there is a wall of greenery that Renji savagely pushes aside, and finally his face is exposed to the night air of the hills beyond. The force of Rukia's spiritual pressure, which has served Renji as a guiding star throughout his journey to the outskirts of the 78th district, suddenly spikes as he draws within close proximity of her. Renji steps out from beneath the canopy of trees, squinting into the distance until he finally catches sight of her, sprawled out on her back at the top of a grassy knoll, one arm folded beneath her cheek in order to cushion it as she gazes up into the phantasmal nothingness above her. Renji relaxes at the sight of his familiar companion, and her complete lack of regard - the undignified manner in which he finds her splayed out so haphazardly in the tall, yellow grass - makes him want to smile. Then he knits his eyebrows together, squares his shoulders, and marches up to where she's lying.

"Rukia."

She does not incline her head, does not make any verbal acknowledgment that he's there. Renji now towers above her, bent at the waist so that he's staring grimly down upon her, the long shadow of his angular body swathing her upper half entirely in darkness. She does not blink, does not stir, and for one alarming moment, he thinks that she's dead. Then she blinks.

"Rukia. _Rukia_." A solitary strand of fiery red hair falls into his face, and Renji pushes it back behind one ear with an irritated gesture. "I know you can hear me. Stop playing games, here. I've come to take you home."

The space between her eyebrows crease, and suddenly Rukia looks so utterly miserable that Renji loses all inspiration to scold her. The entire speech Renji has been mentally practicing for the past half hour goes flying out of his head completely. Rukia looks like she's on the verge of tears, and Renji is absolutely terrified.

"Rukia. Rukia, _please_." He drops to his knees beside her, peers anxiously into her face. "I'm sorry if I'm being an idiot, I just--"

Rukia's breath hitches and suddenly, just like that, it's all over. Her expression clears as suddenly and as spontaneously as it had clouded, the cool, listless facade sidling neatly back into place. Renji isn't sure what's worse - Rukia, teetering dangerously along the edge of mental collapse, or Rukia, hiding behind an impenetrable fortress, with walls that other shinigami cannot breach.

"I know... it's hard on you. I know you were, uhm.... incredibly fond of Assistant Captain Kaien..."

Rukia's shakes her head, diverting her attention away from his face. Renji wants to kick himself: fond doesn't even cover _half_ of it. Rukia's crush on her beloved Kaien-dono was Soul Society's worst kept secret.

"... Look, you know I'm no good at this sort of thing," Renji says exasperatedly at last, rubbing the back of his head as he shifts his weight between his feet awkwardly. "I'm not very good at listening, and you probably don't have anything you want to share with me, anyway. But things will be better tomorrow, Rukia, and if not tomorrow, then probably the next. So let's head on back and we'll call it a night, okay?"

She mumbles something so faintly that he has to strain to hear it, and even then, he still doesn't quite catch it. "Eh?"

Rukia swallows, and Renji can't help but watch the languid movement of the muscles working in her throat. It makes him feel like a dirty pervert, honing in on something like _this_ when it's obvious that she's hurting, but Renji has never been all that chivalrous or tactful anyway so he just rolls with it.

"Not yet," she repeats quietly. "I want to stay out here, just a little longer."

Renji issues an enormous sigh. "Then at least let me sit with you." She doesn't nod, but she doesn't shake her head _either_, and so Renji shrugs, settles down on his back in the long grass beside her. Rukia's dark, glittering orbs lift skyward but Renji chooses not to follow her gaze and takes in the familiar grasslands around them instead.

Renji's no poet, but there's something about the aging, yellow grass here, the dark earth and the open sky above them that is infinitely more beautiful than anything inside the walls of the ancient feudal society that they now call home. He wants to explain this to Rukia, even goes as far as to open his mouth to try and convey what he's feeling, only to give up at the very last moment because he's afraid that he will come across to her as stupid.

The grass beside him rustles and Renji glances down to where Rukia has him by the sleeve of his kimono.

"Renji," she whispers urgently, tugging at it. "_Renji_."

He lifts one tattooed eyebrow curiously at her.

"I'm here, Rukia."

"But for how long?"

Renji isn't sure where she's going with this. Renji props himself up on one hip, puzzled, as he answers:

"For however long you need me to be."

Apparently these are the magic words, because Rukia suddenly reaches up with both hands and seizes him around the neck, pulling his face against her own with bruising force. There is a clash of tongue and teeth that leaves Renji breathless and flushed and more than a little confused.

"...Rukia...?" He asks, bewildered, when she finally allows him to come up for air. Rukia looks nearly furious.

"Kiss me," she commands in a malevolent kiss. "Kiss me, you idiot."

So he does. He's never kissed her before now, and he's not sure if he will ever get the chance again, and so Renji pours his very essence into his kiss. Rukia's hands are in his hair, freeing his scarlet ponytail and combing out the heavy locks as they come tumbling free from their bindings. She pants into his ear as he closes his eyes, blindly finds the hollow her throat with his mouth.

Rukia murmurs breathlessly that she wants him to take her, and although Renji wants to, in the end he can't. It would be wrong of him, to take advantage of her grief; he knows she would only regret the decision later. Her zanpaktou is white after all, for God's sake; he doesn't know if he could ever forgive himself for taking away her purity in her moment of weakness, no matter how great the need within them is presently.

But that doesn't mean he won't do his best to please her in other ways. He spends the next several hours exploring the length of her body with his hands, and then, in the very early hours of the morning, his mouth. Eventually Rukia's little mewls of need will turn into gasps of excitement, and then later, sighs of drowsy contentment. Dawn is breaking when she is at last sated, and Renji holds her tiny form cradled against his larger, much stronger one.

"Its morning," Renji says, as the first rays of light begin to crest over the top of the hills just above them. "We should probably start heading back. They'll be wondering about us."

"Yes, I suppose you're right," Rukia says absently, and Renji helps her to her feet. She looks so forlorn, with her face still obscured with the opaque vestiges of the retreating twilight as she bows her head to tie her sash. Renji finds himself reaching out, clasping her under the chin so that he can stare down into the melancholy lines of her face.

"Buck up. You better wipe that human expression off of your face before the others see."

"Why?" She asks in a vaguely accusatory tone, frowning up at him. "You're still wearing yours."

Renji doesn't have to look in a mirror to know that she's right. They're both mourning, he knows, but for different reasons. He merely shakes his head. "It doesn't matter," he says finally, gruffly. "You're a Kuchiki. It doesn't suit you."


End file.
